A Little Graduate!!

Jane had her school graduation program today and, as usual with Kids' Village, it was completely darling!!!! All the kids walked out in a red (the school color) cap and gown...so cute!! I think Jane looked especially darling!
The program began with a few songs from the kids...with actions!!
Jane really got into it at some points :)
enough said...
After a cute little slide show of Jane's class, Jane's cute teacher announced each graduate's name and they walked forward to be given a diploma. I was soooo proud of our little Jane-when her name was announced she very patiently and carefully walked across the floor to get her diploma- she was a real pro. Hopefully, she will be doing this several more times in her life :)
Once all the kids got their diplomas, they all lined up on a red carpet as their principal congratulated the graduating "Sweet Pea" class of 2011. They even took off their hats and threw them in the air...I was dying, it was so cute!!
Here is Jane's teacher! She was such a fabulous teacher and Jane absolutely LOVED her!! Thanks Miss Erin for all your hard work!!
One of the fam after the program!! Daddy, Beckham and I were so proud of Jane. She had a GREAT school year and learned and grew sooo much!!
Of course, Beckham had to take a few moments and play inside the adorable tree house in the middle of the school...his favorite place ever!!
Though I am very excited to move, I am devastated that we have to leave this wonderful school. It has been so beneficial to Jane and she loved every minute of it. Thanks Kid's Village, we love love you so much!!

Spring Time Family Pics

I must be computer illiterate because I cannot figure out how to get these bigger...but they are darn cute anyway (I'll keep working on it :)) A HUGE thanks to Christina who took these for us. She did an AMAZING job, especially considering our kids did NOT cooperate for even 1 second of this photo shoot :)

Saving the best for last!!

This is our last Easter at home in Utah for who knows how long... so we tried to really make some wonderful memories during out last Utah Easter!!! And though it wasn't perfect, it was wonderful and we had tons of fun :) This included some Easter art projects for Jane!!
Here's the end product...
And of course, we colored Easter eggs...GLITTER Easter eggs...Jane was loving every minute of it. Naturally, the pink ones were her favorites.
Here's Mama (clearly tired...yikes) and Jane waiting for the eggs to dry.
Oh how Jane loved the glitter portion of our egg coloring adventure...lots of crazy shaking, glitter EVERYWHERE...what's not to love?!!
Here's Daddy and Jane with the finished product. Jane couldn't stop admiring her work :)
On the Saturday before Easter, Jane and Beckham awoke to Easter baskets with a few fun little surprises.
They both dove right in...
...and loved every minute of it.
Next, the Easter bunny hid lots of candy filled eggs around our house for the kids to find!! (we owe thanks to the awful weather for making this an indoor event...) Jane was a pro at this.
Beckham wasn't too shabby either :)

Once Beckham found out what was inside the eggs, he quite searching and began the eating pretty quickly :) I love my BIG, little guy!!
And once Jane saw Beckham eating, she decided she needed to join him!! We had a fun little Easter eve morning :)
For almost twenty years Christina, my cousin Natalie and I have been going over to my Grandma Pat and Grandpa Chuck's home on the day before Easter to set the table and help get everything ready for the big Easter dinner and egg hunt with all my family!! Here's the finished table looking beautiful along with my awesome Grandpa overlooking it all...
Here's all the gals filling the many many Easter eggs chuck full of candy and dollar bills for the kids to find!!
This has truly been a cherished tradition of mine. I am unbelievably sad that I won't be here next year to do it!! I LOVE my grandma and grandpa...and Nat and Christina of course!
I didn't get many pictures of the dinner on Easter Sunday because my kids were absolutely INSANE and CRAZY all evening...but I was able to get a few of the egg hunt. Here's Jane with her cousins Ryley and Mason after the prosperous egg hunt :)
My mom was nice enough to stay outside with Beckham for awhile...that being almost the only thing that made him happy...poor little guy.
This was a fabulous Easter and one I will remember always. Along with all the fun and talk of Easter eggs and bunnies, we definitely tried to help our kids remember that the true meaning of Easter is to remember our Savior and the significance of his resurrection. I felt amazingly blessed this Easter as I was surrounded by such a wonderful family, an amazing husband and two beautiful, fun kids and I can't overlook my Savior and Father in Heaven as having played a huge roll in all that :) I have a lot to be thankful for!!

Hungry Hungry Caterpillar!!

While shopping for Easter goodies for the kiddos awhile ago, I came across this "Live Butterfly Garden"!! You can actually order caterpillar larvae in the mail and you watch them grow into caterpillars, cocoons and eventually into butterflies!! I was so excited about this because Jane was quite literally deathly afraid of bugs and I thought that if she could watch and observe some bugs and see how cool they are, she might not be so crazy about them anymore!! It TOTALLY worked. Jane thought her caterpillar babies were the coolest thing in the world...actually the whole process had us all really fascinated :)

Here's Jane with her brand new caterpillar babies!!
Every day we would watch them grow and see how they would change! They grew SO quickly!
I know it looks kinda gross...but here are the caterpillars all grown up and preparing to turn into "Chrysalids" as we learned they were called. It was absolutely incredible to watch!!
When the "chrysalids" are formed you put them into this little netted home and wait for them to come out as butterflies. Jane was so excited every day to see if the butterflies had come out yet!! Once they did we got to feed them and watch them eat... this was also amazing to watch. And eventually, we got to let them go:)
Here's one of our butterfly friends flying away. Notice how close Jane is to it as it flies away...she was totally brave!!!
There she is on the house next to us, saying goodbye!!
Even Beckham (with his Buddha belly...love it) loved watching the butterflies grow. He laughed SO hard watching them fly around!
Here's the last one flying away!! It was such a fun and cool science experiment that we did as a family. We all really learned A LOT about butterflies and best of all, they helped Jane get over her fear of bugs!!
Thanks little butterfly friends for the fun!!

We're moving!!!!

After 5 years at the lovely Crestline Estates...(no really it has been quite a blessing even though I like to joke about it :) Ryan and I have FINALLY found out where we will be moving...
...can you guess...

... know it yet?...



DELAWARE!!!!! And we are sooooo excited!!
Delaware was our #1 choice when prioritizing the AF bases that were listed as options. The base in Dover, Delaware was perfect for MANY reasons and we feel very blessed to have gotten our first choice when the probability of that seemed unlikely :) Now the adventure ahead for us is new and so exciting for a gal who has NEVER lived outside of Utah. Though leaving my family is going to be SUPER hard (I don't know what I am going to do without my best friend and sister, Christina...lots and lots of phone calls and visits I hope!!) I am very exciting for this new chapter in the Dick saga :)

Sleeping Beauty's Castle!

Ryan and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple...the most beautiful place EVER!! Jane and Beckham had never been there so last Saturday, Ryan and I decided to go and spend some time around the temple. It was wonderful! Jane LOVED it and kept calling it Sleeping Beauty's castle :)


Beckham just loved running around and being free!!
We also went to the temple visitors center. I had never been there before....so sad...I know. It was really cool!! Jane loved the beautiful big pictures of Jesus' life.

She also thought walking up to the statue of Christ was amazing! At one point we heard her exclaim, "I've never seen this in all my life!" It was so funny!

In the basement there was a very fascinating display about ancient prophets as well as Joseph Smith. It was really wonderful!
As we were getting in the car to go home Jane said, "That was not a little bit of fun, it was a lot of fun!" She is so cute. And Beckham was so cooperative, patient and such a good boy the whole time!! What a fun day we had at the "Sleeping Beauty's castle"!